Gospel of Mary

The Gospel of Mary starts on page 7, in the middle of a question. Someone is asking the risen Savior whether matter will be destroyed, and we never learn who, because the first six pages of the only Coptic copy are gone. Four more pages vanish right when Mary starts describing her vision. What survives is short enough to read over a cup of coffee. It’s also one of the most dramatic texts from early Christianity, and it ends with an argument that never really got settled. I wrote about who Mary Magdalene was in the Gnostic tradition back in January. This time I want to read the gospel itself, holes and all, because the argument at the end means more once you’ve seen what comes before it. ...

You probably learned that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute whom Jesus forgave. She’s the repentant sinner who washed his feet with tears and dried them with her hair. There’s just one problem: that’s not what the texts say. The Bible never identifies Mary Magdalene as a prostitute. That association came later, in a 6th-century sermon by Pope Gregory the Great, who conflated several different women in the Gospels into a single figure. ...